A Missing Swot
by Way Worse Than Scottish
Summary: Takes place during my fic It's Just My Personality. Covers Harry's side of the story and follows his life, and the bushy-haired swot that was missing.


a/n: one reviewer had this great idea, so I'm putting their idea to work. This doesn't really add to the plot, but it's fun!

O00oooo000o00o0o~time skip~

"Hey, where's Hermione?" the hero of the Wizarding world asked, pushing up his glasses which were almost falling from his face.

"What?" his red-haired friend said around a mouthful of chicken. "Oh, I dunno. Prolly somewhere off, crying," Ron smiled.

Harry looked down at his food. Ron was being a bit harsh, but he was Ron. He _had_ to be right, right? Ron knew so much more than him, _and_ he was Harry's best friend, so why question his logic?

Shrugging, Harry began eating again. Hermione wasn't his problem, and who wanted to deal with the swot anyhow? She was probably crying, as Ron had said, and Harry didn't feel comfortable around crying people.

"TROLL! TROLL IN THE DUNGEONS!" Professor Quirrel burst forth from the entrance to the Great Hall. "Thought you ought to know," he collapsed.

"Oh my!" exclaimed Professor McGonagall.

"Students!" Dumbledore's voice reverberated in the room. "Calm down. Prefects, get your houses to your dorms immediately. Slytherins, follow Professor Snape. He will lead you somewhere safe."

The students got up, slightly less panicked. "Ron!" Harry nudged his friend.

"What? Isn't this so cool? There's a troll! I haven't seen one of them ever!" Ron enthused, still chewing on his dinner.

"No, mate. Didn't Hermione go down to the girl's washroom down there? I think Lavender was saying something like that…" Harry trailed off, unsure.

Ron shrugged. "So?"

"Well, we should do something about it! We have to get to her before the troll does!" Harry couldn't believe Ron's callousness. Sure, Hermione was annoying, but she didn't deserve to die! As they left the Great Hall with the Gryffindor group, led by Percy Weasley, Ron's prat of a brother, Harry pulled Ron aside. "Come on, we've got to go save her! The professors won't get there in time!"

Ron grinned. "I don't care about that bookworm, but _bloody hell, _I NEED to see that troll!"

They raced off to the girl's lavatories, avoiding their professors with practiced ease. It was pretty easy to tell where the troll had been, just look for crushed walls and broken floor tiles, and you're on your way.

Ron pushed open the door to the lavatories with a shocking amount of confidence. "Hey, Granger!" he called out. He turned to look at his friend and shrugged. Then he realized Harry's green eyes were filled with terror.

"Ron…" he said warningly.

With a gulp, the Weasley slowly turned around. Yup, there was a troll. Looking at them. Right behind them. "Oh, _bloody hell," _he said under his breath.

Harry peered around his friend. With a frown, he ducked back. "I didn't see Hermione," he said quietly.

"RAAAAWWWWWRGGG!" said the troll.

"Dear Merlin!"

"Oh, my mum's gonna be **so **mad when she hears about this…"

"Right, well, we could just back up _veeerrrry _slowly, and er, maybe he won't notice?" Harry asked hopefully.

All of a sudden, the troll smashed the door behind them.

"Run!"

O0ooo0o0oo0oo0o0o0o00o

Snape, Flitwick, McGonagall and Dumbledore had conveniently found Ron and Harry _before_ they died from a troll attack, which was pretty lucky for them. They detained the troll and everything seemed to be alright, despite a hefty amount of points being removed from Gryffindor for general stupidity. Apparently Gryffindor had never seen their hourglass go into the negative digits.

However, one thing that concerned the professors and Harry too, was the fact that one Gryffindor never became accounted for. The professors had cleaned up the girls' lavatories until it sparkled, and spent an entire weekend searching through the dungeons, but the fact of the matter was, Hogwarts was too big to thoroughly search.

The strange thing was, most of the professors didn't seem all that distraught, not that any students noticed besides Harry. He was rather concerned about their ambivalence; and sometimes Dumbledore would look at him with that mysterious twinkle in his eye, and Snape would smirk, the greasy git. All in all, it made Harry a little more wary. Did his professors even care about the student body? He vowed to be more careful from now on; he didn't want to be forgotten like Hermione.

He decided he'd have to have a talk with the Headmaster.

0o00o0o0oo0o0o

"Sir?" he asked, as he came into Dumbledore's office.

"Yes, Harry m'boy, sit down. Lemon sherbet? How's Hogwarts treating you?" the old man said kindly. Oh, he knew what had happened; Hermione had as much as told him so a couple decades ago, and despite what others thought, Dumbledore was as sharp as a tack and had the memory of an elephant. He had kind of wished that Harry would simply forget about Hermione much like the rest of the student population, but it seemed like the whole incident had become a seed of mistrust growing inside the Boy Who Lived.

"Er, Hogwarts is great, sir," Harry muttered. "Well, see, it's just that, er, well, Hermione Granger, right? Where'd she go? Did the professors find her? You haven't made any announcements, and no one seems to really care…"

Dumbledore nodded sagely. "Ah, that's true. She wasn't the most popular amongst her peers, was she?"

"But, sir, why aren't the adults more concerned about this? What about her parents? Didn't she have a cat, too?"

"Very astute reasoning, my boy," the old man smiled. "As to why the professors aren't panicked, well, we know where Miss Granger is, and I can assure you she is safe and happy. Her parents know where she is, and everything is as it should be. Don't concern yourself too much, Harry."

Harry frowned. The headmaster's answer was rather vague, and not that comforting at all. "So, er, where is she?"

The elder clasped his hands under his chin. "Well, you see Harry, she wasn't comfortable here. She went away to another place where she was more welcomed, and she is thriving. Unfortunately I can't disclose her location, privacy and all, I'm sure you understand," he winked.

"So… she wasn't hurt at all?" Harry verified.

"Only by the mockery of her peers, Harry. She is resilient, though, and refuses to fall down to social pressure. Indeed, it's very hard to beat an opponent who refuses to give up, Harry," Dumbledore pondered. He recalled the trouble that had been one Hermione Granger. He was so glad to get her out of his hair…

"Right, well, er, thank you, sir. For… answering my questions." Harry nodded. "Did you want to talk about anything else?"

"Just one more thing," Dumbledore said around a rather large lemon sherbet in his mouth. Almost reminded Harry of Ron for a second. It really made him wonder what Dumbledore looked like in his youth. "It's best not to tell others about Miss Granger's situation. I'd _hate_ for her reputation to be sullied by rumours."

"Of course, sir." But Harry would tell Ron everything. He always did. Harry doubted his ginger friend would care, though.

O0o0oo00o0o0o0ooo0o

The disappearance of Hermione Granger was never far from Harry's mind after that. He knew she was a Muggleborn, but still tried looking for her whenever he was in London or Diagon Alley. He once thought he saw a bushy mane of hair, but that lady was over thirty years old, and was heading towards Knockturn Alley to boot. Definitely not Hermione, nor her mum.

He supposed he could thank Hermione, if he ever saw her again. Because of her disappearance, he was more cautious, less prone to spur-of-the-moment adventures. Ron said he had become boring, but Harry didn't really care.

Another thing that had been passed on unintentionally was Hermione's work ethic. While Harry _did_ of course, join the Quidditch team and play chess and exploding snap with Ron, he also made sure he had ample time to complete his homework. That isn't to say he _always_ did his homework on time; that would be entirely out of character. But he _did _normally have time to study, and was soon among the top students. What could he say? He just had a knack for magic.

He wasn't the top student, though. That spot was tied between Draco Malfoy and Luna Lovegood. Despite Luna's perceived whimsy, she had a gift when it came to Charms, Transfiguration, Defense, and oddly enough, History of Magic.

Harry soon realized that Ron was rather… well, not academically inclined. He was rather a pest, actually, when it came to school. The Weasley distracted him in class and had a bad habit of never doing homework and begging for Harry's almost illegible notes and essays. Which is why Harry had become fast friends with Luna Lovegood and Padma Patil.

Luna had a tendency to use… rather unreliable sources in her essays (one time, a Nargle had informed her of the Goblin Wars; Harry thought best not to question it). And Padma, while she _was _studious, was prone to gossip and could be rather shallow. Not that Harry didn't have flaws either, but still. See, Harry _had _had a crush on Cho Chang in fourth year, but after a bit of Padma's gossip, Harry decided he didn't want to deal with Cho. Much too sentimental, and _completely _head over heels for Cedric Diggory.

A love interest _had _appeared however, closer to home than he'd imagined. Luna's best friend, Ginny Weasley, had always been rather shy around him, but from what he'd observed she was outgoing, fun, and down to earth. The fact that she liked Quidditch was an added bonus, and could possibly outfly him became his source of competition. The only kind of downside was the fact she was related to Ron, and an entire herd of brothers.

After their initial shyness though, Harry and Ginny hit it off. Harry, had, of course, talked about it to all of her brothers (even going so far as to send an owl to her brothers in Egypt and Romania) as well as Ginny's dad. The Weasleys were thrilled, obviously, as they had already considered him family.

Throughout the rest of his school years, Harry could depend on Ron, Padma, Luna and Ginny to support him, which was rather useful during the Tri-Wizard tournament and Umbridge's reign, not to mention his search for Horcruxes. Luna joined him and Ron on the search, and had decoded Dumbledore's allusion to the Deathly Hallows in less than a minute. Apparently talking to Nargles really worked. There were also a bunch of secret notes that they had found which helped them quite a bit. Every once in a while, they'd find a note by their tent or in their general vicinity that would lead them to the next Horcrux.

After the search for Horcruxes and the Battle of Hogwarts, every student had been given the opportunity of doing another year at Hogwarts. Most of Harry's group had gone back to school, except Ron who had scraped by, and had gone into Auror training with the recommendation of the Saviour of the Wizarding World. Pretty hefty resume, if you ask me.

Anyway, Harry and Ginny had stayed together, but what was even more surprising (or unsurprising, really, because it's Luna) was that Luna and Draco became a couple. It kind of made sense, though, since they were both the top students (and happened to be Head Boy and Head Girl—pretty convenient, really) and Draco had become a lot more open-minded.

Another strange thing had occurred. During their graduation ceremony, Snape was there with a bushy-haired girl that kind of resembled Hermione. Probably her mum, looking at the graduation her daughter would never have. Hermione had never contacted him, not that he had expected her to, but all the same it would've been nice to find out what she was up to.

Harry had sent her a letter when he graduated. He assumed she had received it, because his new owl, Crooks, had returned. He supposed he'd never know what had become of that bushy-haired swot he had once known.


End file.
